


Trooper

by WT Maxwell (WThomas_M)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hard to be the guy in white, stormtroopers have feelings too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2020-05-18 20:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WThomas_M/pseuds/WT%20Maxwell
Summary: The second Death Star is a cloud of debris above you and you don't want to end up a snack for the Ewoks. So, what do you do next?





	Trooper

_Aloof_

VHX-1138, “Vex” to his squad mates, had that thrown at him as an insult, drinking at a bar off the Dandine Maelstrom. The Rule of Directed Force (which kept the peace across 402 systems) required troopers to be separate and pristine. It was one of the reasons they dressed in ivory-colored armor, not the more familiar darks of other divisions. They were supposed to be above everything; a pure and decisive judgment against the childish actions of a reluctant citizenry.

_When he was small and just out of the decanting tube, a caretaker found him lost in the rain. “It costs very little to show kindness…” his caretaker said. “—and our connection to each other is the strongest gift we can give.” His caretaker was taken away the next day for ‘readjustment’._

Vex never really reached that detached-from-humanity ideal. Rules were rules, but sometimes, you needed to blow off some steam: sneak off base, drink a little, get into trouble. In Vex’s experience, the brass looked the other way for the most part, as long as troopers weren’t taking too much advantage of the locals.

_The fight was outside a bar, a friendly one between his squad and some older teens looking to prove themselves. In the end, it was more wrestling and laughing than it was about hurting someone. Vex got a face full of mud. His squad-mate laughed and said “You look just like them.” Then, they heard an MP’s whistle and they scattered._

_The next day, they found out the bar had been burned down in reprisal._

There was this one time he had been assigned to swamp detail, knee-deep in muck searching for some rebel leader. Nothing much came of it. They never found the target and later heard he’d died in a low-orbit mineral processing station. Or maybe in a desert. Vex wasn’t sure and he didn’t really care.

Now… everything was different. The rebellion was real and it was winning.

Head on the ground. Helmet cracked from a blow that should have killed him. An improvised local trap, a low-tech, stupid, indigenous, improvised trap had taken him down. Unfiltered air flooded in.

_Tem (THM-2016), the oldest on the squad outside of Vex, was dying. “Be remembered in glory.” Vex whispered, the official prayer for the dying. “Liars!” Tem growled, coughing up blood. Vex helped wrestle the helmet off him. “They want you to think you’re like them, but you’re not.” Tem grabbed Vex’s head, the closeness of death giving him a final burst of strength. “You’re like everyone else.”_

Vex’s blood tasted coppery and he wondered about that. The supplemental vitamin regimen created differences in their overall physiology; did that make him different from the people he killed? Sitting up was painful. Helmet came off easily. The trees surrounding him were overwhelmingly beautiful. That wasn’t why he was crying. It was the dull, intermittent booms in the sky, where debris hit the atmosphere and burned. It was the halo of an explosion in the sky. The very heart of humanity’s sovereign power now gone.

It was seeing all hope die.

Vex was having a hard time wrapping his head around it. The systems had been dying; the older dreams of working through “respecting mutual differences” was breaking apart. Lesser governments inflicted their will on more powerful planets and war was inevitable. Under the sovereign reach of mankind, the lesser systems were finally forced to understand their proper place in the hierarchy of the dominion or die.

_Vex remembered a little girl, alien in the way that made your skin crawl, who came up to him and shoved a piece of paper in his hand. It was a cartoon, cleverly done, lampooning the troopers. She was a rebel, obviously. Orders were that rebels were to be shot on sight. But she was still a child and it looked to Vex like she thought it was a game. And the cartoon was pretty funny. He slipped it in a belt pouch but forgot to hand it off to the Ministry of Social Services. Occasionally, he’d pull it out for a chuckle._

Vex spit, dropped the helmet, and listened to the shouts of victory across the valley. Locals. He’d seen good men die, friends die, at their hands. And even as he thought that, he knew, deep down, a truth. He wasn’t going to make it off this world. He wasn’t going to make it home.

And then as he looked up, a thought came that he couldn’t shake.

_Why did it matter?_

Clouds were forming, the result of the particulates from the explosion seeding the sky above. Helmet in hand, Vex headed towards the drop point. Perhaps there was a shuttle there. Maybe it would get him far enough on planet to be out of immediate danger.

Maybe there’d be others who’d made it and they could band together, make a community, live out their lives in isolation. GLN-4279 had been interested in gardening. JNH-0037 had been studying clean water reclamation. Maybe they could build back a semblance of order, of civilization. Reclaim their place.

Vex looked down at his helmet, angrily threw it against a tree. It wasn’t fair! He’d spent a lifetime supported a system that promised…

What had it promised?

_That you would be like them. That if you died, it was in service to a greater cause than yourself._

Liars.

They were all liars.

The armor was pressing in on him. He was tired and it was heavy. He’d been in it all of his life.

Would they kill him on sight? Would they even know him without all the accompanying gear and attitude.

He was so tired.

Giving all of this up. The thought of it hurt.

What would he be without it?

What the hell would he be if he was no longer white?

Bit by bit.

Vex removed his armor.


End file.
